Bathampton Mill, Bath

As the name suggests, this is a converted mill house and is well described by Blackthorne, below. The staff were friendly, reasonably helpful, but the location brings a mixed bag of customers, including, on this visit, a large coachful of elderly wheel-chair users which made service very slow indeed and crowded the outside seating area. Two ales on from Sharp, Doombar and Atlantic, both in reasonable condition. The prices are higher than I would like, and parking can be problematic, but it’s not a bad place to sit and enjoy the sun if you can find space.

A good sized pub overlooking the river, weir and bridge, it makes the most of it’s attractive location with a large beer garden and plenty of outside seating, both on the grass alongside the riverbank and on a terrace made of wooden decking running around two sides of the pub. It appears to have been recently refurbished, and I believe that it was badly flooded a few months back which would account for the fresh look. Inside, the pub consists of one large, open-plan “L” shaped room with a small snug at the back and a mixture of tiling and wood boards on the floor and further wooden boards cladding the back wall. A stone fire-place was at one end and the paintwork was the usual Farrow & Ball pastel shades and whilst pleasant enough it all seemed a little bland and unimaginative like you get I many chain pubs. A few old oak beams were the only nod to anything slightly more authentic. Service at the bar seemed somewhat chaotic – it was a sunny bank holiday afternoon so naturally the pub was very busy, but the problem was not so much a lack of staff but a lack of any organisation with many of them just milling around instead of serving the throng of thirsty punters waiting at the bar. The terrace outside looks to have had some money spent on it, with lots of wooden furniture, candles swinging from the frames above the tables, and even cushions laid out on the benches which was a nice touch. Seating in the garden was mostly plastic by the look of it, but unusually included loungers as well as chairs if you just wanted to relax and admire the view. Food wise the menu offered a good selection of dishes, perhaps a step or two up from your usual “pub grub” but nothing too out the way and also included a selection of sharing platters and sandwiches. Most of these were priced somewhere between about £9 - £13, and many were available in both small and large portion sizes. We were only there for a mid-afternoon snack so opted for a Beef Tomato, Mozzarella and Avocado Half Baguette with optional Chicken. At £9.45 this seemed expensive, even though it was accompanied with a side-order of chips. As it happens, ours came out without the requested chicken, which I wasn’t too concerned about as long as we didn’t get charged for it, but the waitress Lucy, who incidentally, was very hard working, switched on and a real credit to the place, brought us a whole new baguette complete with chicken this time, and another portion of chips. So in the end, two meals for the price of one was pretty good, but ordinarily of course that would not be the case. The beer supply seemed just as disorganised as the kitchen and the bar service and despite five pumps on the bar, two had no clips on and two had apparently run out leaving just Gales Spring Sprinter. When a punter next to me asked for this, he was told it had run out, but they had Proper Job on instead. By the time I left, neither of these were in evidence, but they were apparently serving Doom Bar and Gem. The solitary cider was Aspall’s Suffolk which was a bit of a shame – why they couldn’t have offered something a little more local I’m not sure. Overall, I’ve mixed views on this – it’s certainly a very pleasant spot, but whether there is much reason to visit when the sun’s not out is open to debate.